Wherever an altar is found, there civilization exists – Joseph de Maistre

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The rout of Thomism from American Catholicism

Great article at Culture Wars. I agree with all the major points. Secularists were never interested in dialogue with us. Jacques Maritain made a complete ass of himself trying to suck up to Paul Blanshard. Catholic intellectuals betrayed their ethnic subcultures in the name of anti-racism. They never realized the importance of the sexual revolution or how seriously our enemies take it. The intolerance of the philosophical guild helped minor academics successfully purge Thomism from Catholic philosophy departments. Here’s how far it’s gone:

While this is not in the book, if we turn to Notre Dame, in 2005, Edward Manier, much in the same way that Louis Wirth did at Chicago in the 1930s, led an effort to address what to his mind was cause for great concern: “there are four Thomist adjuncts teaching introduction to philosophy in the department.” The department initiated a year-long review of the syllabi of those Thomists, to make sure they were teaching philosophy in a way that was consistent with the standards of contemporary academic philo-sophism. In essence, Manier and his colleagues wanted to be sure that classical realism keep its place in the intellectual catacombs of the 21st Century.

American Catholics will recognize many of the names in this story: Jacques Maritain, Etienne Gilson, Mortimer Adler, Yves Simon, Ralph McInerny,… Our Catholic readers will definitely want to check it out.

The crackpot vibe mostly seems to come from Jones’s willingness to name Masons, Jews, Bilderburgers, the WASP establishment, and etc. The thing is, it’s not like any of the people he names particularly hide their allegiance to the Enlightenment and their enmity for Christendom. Noticing these things while praising makes you a non-crackpot. Noticing these things while critiquing makes you a crackpot.

It’s almost as if “crackpot” is not about the process of people’s thinking at all, but about who, whom.